Advani smells the 147

Who will get the CCI jackpot of Rs.1.47 Lakh for the magic break of 147?
 

Pankaj Advani announced he could be the one when having a clearance of 135 in his round of 32 match of the Rs.3.7 Lakh CCI Platinum Jubilee Open Snooker Tournament on Monday. Advani had breaks of 135 unfinished and 107while brushing aside CCI's Mayur Sanghvi 135-0, 56-39, 86-0, 107-0. "It was highly satisfactory to get two century breaks in my opening match. The last time I have scored as many century breaks in a match or more was when I beat Aditya Mehta 3-2 in 2006." Advani had not hit a century in the PSPB and India trials in Goa.

When he was on the 135 break, attention was drawn to the Rs1.47 lakh prize money for the 147 break from the CCI members. "There was a voice in the crowd urging me to go for the 147. But I had a difficult angle following the potting of the blue," said Advani.

By a coincidence playing on the opening day of the round of 32 was legend Geet Sethi, the only Indian to hit 147 in any tournament and its a record that he was the first Amateur to smash 147. Sethi said, "You need to be in good touch. The way Pankaj and Manan Chandra are playing the it is they who can do it." Talking about his own feat Sethi said, "It was 21 years ago at the Guntur Nationals, it was in the second round against a Hyderabad youngster named Latif. The reds were well strung out and I didn't have a problem till the brown. Again after that it was easy." Sethi said he hit three other 147s in practice. (CSI will shortly upload the score-sheet of Geet's 147 break)

Sethi got a prize of Rs.5,000 from the national federation, "a princely sum those days when the total prize money of open tournaments was about Rs.2,000."

Manan Chandra drew praise from connoisseurs with his fluent play while beating young gun Faisal Khan from the Railways crushing him 66-50, 68-42, 75-40, 56-15. "I was looking for the centuries but Faisal kept upsetting my rhythm with 30s and 40s," said Manan.

The others who sailed through to the pre-quarter-finals were fourth seed Kamal Chawla (Railways), fifth seed Alok Kumar (PSPB), seventh seed Yasin Merchant (Maharashtra), Rupesh Shah (Railways), MS Arun (Karnataka), Lucky Vatnani (Hyderabad), Devendra Joshi (PSPB), Nikhil Ootam (Maharashtra) and Sourav Kothari (PSPB).

The only blemish was the upset of PSPB's Dhruv Sitwala who went down 1-4 to Manav Panchal of Mumbai's Malabar Hill Club who was the only qualifier to advance to the last 16.

Main Round Draw & Results

Mumbai - Monday 23 February 2009